Assuming Memory and Mortal Fatigue
by aviatrix
Summary: This is who he is, and this is how he came to be. Giles x Ethan (nothing explicit)


DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters, Joss (lord of all that is holy) Whedon does. And ME, and whoever liscenced the show.   
  
PAIRING: G/E  
  
RATING: hard R, for sex, violence, bloodplay, and profanity. And, uh, drug use.  
  
FEEDBACK: Constructive criticism is an author's best friend. Word.  
  
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Oh promptly he  
  
appears and takes his earthly nature,  
  
instantly, insantly falls  
  
victim of long intrigue,  
  
assuming memory and mortal,  
  
mortal fatigue.  
  
More slowly falling into sight  
  
and showering into stippled faces,  
  
darkening, condensing all his light;  
  
in spite of all the dreaming  
  
squandered upon him with that look;  
  
sinks through the drift of bodies...  
  
~ Elizabeth Bishop, "Anaphone"  
  
x  
  
x  
  
x  
  
x  
  
When Giles had been back in England for a week, a postcard arrived at his door. He had picked it up, expecting it to be from Buffy or Willow or any of the *children* he had...left behind (for their own good, of course). He had encouraged them to write. He was an ex-librarian, after all.  
  
But.  
  
It was a lurid gag card, the kind with naked women posing in bad light that never fails to send teenaged male tourists into fits of giggles.   
  
The morning had greeted Giles with a cup of tea, the local paper, and a picture of a stripper (licking her lips) with a note on the back -  
  
*Be seeing you. - Ethan.*  
  
Giles tossed it into his pile of Things to Do Eventually that was accumalating on his desk, and finished his tea.  
  
x  
  
They met, predictably, on a grey day in London, with almost-rain and cheap plastic umbrellas dangling from hands.  
  
They were both older, much more faded than they had been the last time they had met, but Ethan still had that masochistic grin and Giles still had that stuttery sadistic gleam in his eye, and that was enough - enough when they bantered and insulted each other and got drunk on straight gin, enough when they stumbled home (to the same home).  
  
And, despite blurred vision and rusty joints, it was most certainly enough when they fucked.  
  
x  
  
Giles was 16 when he first met Ethan.  
  
He had been leaning against a tree in the school grounds, sneaking a smoke between classes. He had snapped the flame from his lighter with long-practiced ease, and had blown the smoke through his nose the way his brother had taught him last year. Across from him was a boy, with long hair and longer legs, leaning (no, *lounging*) against a tree and mimicking Giles' movements, flicking his lighter but doing it, holding it, like he was meant to be doing just that, and always had been - not practiced, like Giles, but real. Like he had been born with that peculiar cruel grace that's required for the best kind of rebellion, and not spent hours in front of the mirror, like Giles had. Languid, calm, not forced at all.  
  
Giles had caught himself staring at the boy who held a cigarette like it was an extension of his self, and he had -   
  
coughed. Ungracefully. Snorted smoke through his nose (the wrong way), bent over double with his fist pressed to his mouth, and hacked like a fucking novice. When he looked up, the boy tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it delicately underneath his foot, and smirked at him, playful in a violent sort of way, and glided off.   
  
Giles would try to replicate that smile later, in front of his mirror, but could never make it anything more than violent.  
  
x  
  
Giles was 19 when he met Ethan for the second time.  
  
He had been leaning against the wall in a crouded club (and by this time, you couldn't tell it had been practiced), and   
  
*that boy*  
  
had seen him, and smirked, and swept through the sweaty throng like fucking Moses and had pressed up against him, smelling like cloves and smoke and candle wax and magick, and whispered in his ear.  
  
Giles (by now, 'Ripper' to his mates) had practiced not blushing in front of the mirror enough to look suitably bored and not-shocked.  
  
The boy looked hurt at not having gotten a rise out of Ripper, but grabbed his dirty leather collar with glittering hands and kissed him, hard, and ground his cock into Ripper's. He whispered into his ear again, just -   
  
"Come on, then"  
  
and he pulled back, beckoning.   
  
Ripper woke up the next morning, alone, tangled up in dirty sheets in an unfamiliar motel, with aches in odd places and a matchbook in his hand.  
  
Two unused matches, a number, and a name. Ethan.  
  
x  
  
These days are just like the old days, except - maybe - quieter, and slower, and with a desperate bitter undertone. But, really, despite the passing of time and the inevitable change, it still goes the same, as:  
  
Ethan whimpers quietly when Giles scratches his fingernails down his back hard enough to draw blood. It dries quickly, and it's a strange itchy feeling, like saltwater drying in the sun after a day spent in the ocean. When he comes, his shout is muffled by the pillow clenched between his teeth. Giles slumps down, spent, with the bitter taste of blood in his mouth.  
  
and as:  
  
Ethan and Giles, hands intertwined, call up magicks that take them through ecstasy and leave them drained, hands stinging from ritual cuts.  
  
x  
  
a memory;  
  
A night (years ago), typically blurred by smoke, lit by candles and the blueish-green glow of magick. Randall sat drunk in the middle of a chalk circle, Ethan and Giles on opposite ends, chanting. The others stood huddled in a shivery, nervous/excited group in the corner of the room.   
  
Randall twitched, head thrown back in a silent howl, and they watched in eager anticipation. Ritual breeds voyeurism, and this one in particular - hands already caressing in the shadows as Randall flailed in pain/ecstasy/pain. And then, something - a flicker in Randall's eyes, panic -   
  
Eyghon-as-Randall turned to Ripper, said matter-of-factly, "I've lost control." Then Eyghon was just Eyghon and he backhanded Ripper in the mouth, leaning over him and licking the blood that dripped off his lips. Ripper shuddered. Someone (Deirdre, Phillip, he doesn't remember) threw him a gun, and he stared at it, Eyghon licking his neck, claws ripping through his shirt. Ripper fumbled with the gun, shaky hands desperately trying to figure out how to make it work. And, in the analytical part of his mind his father so prized, he remembered:  
  
*Step one: Pull back the safety. *  
  
Click.  
  
*Step two: Aim.*  
  
He steeled his hands and shoved the gun down Eyghon's throat.  
  
*Step three: Fire.*  
  
He pulled the trigger, twice,  
  
and watched out of the corner of his eye as Eyghon turned back into Randall, who pressed a hand to his head, to the fucking gaping hole in his head, and looked accusingly at Ripper as he collapsed to the floor.  
  
Everyone left, quickly.  
  
Everyone except Ripper, no-longer-Randall, and Ethan.  
  
Ripper awkwardly fell to his knees, his throat burning as he vomited until there was nothing left in his stomach, then gagged dryly. He, finally, coughed and stopped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, running his tongue over the bitter metallic taste left on his teeth.  
  
Ethan laughed, a hollow, awful laugh, and dragged Ripper up by his collar. He shoved him against the wall and pressed his lips violently against Ripper's. Ripper let his fingers go white clutched against the gun and shoved back as hard as he could. Ethan looked up with that sick smile, and Ripper snarled, flipping the gun around in his hand and smashing it against Ethan's skull. Ethan kept smiling, woozily, as he viciously and methodically beat him up.  
  
He finally stopped, his hands sticky with blood, maybe a little after Ethan had passed out. He stumbled over to the phone and called his father (the number he still had memorized, despite repeated attempts to forget it).   
  
His father never asked why he had decided to return, and Giles never told him.  
  
x  
  
Ethan stifled his hurt at being abandoned underneath a cocky grin and endless plans - to make money, to piss people off, but most importantly, to get Ripper back. Or, possibly, get back at Ripper - he changed his mind a lot. But, really, wasn't that the point? After all, he was a chaos mage, contradictions and disorder were his life.  
  
Either way, his plans never really quite worked out the way he wanted it to.   
  
x  
  
Ethan's succeeded now, maybe. It certainly looks that way. There's a sense, in the ozone tang of dark magick and the taste of Ethan's blood and in the way they occasionally sit in the kitchen and read the paper together - there's a sense of memorized passion.  
  
They lock themselves in the bedroom, Ethan's bright crackling spells drifting through the air, Giles pulling out a long thin knife from a black velvet box. Giles still moves with well-practiced ease, and Ethan (as ever) leans into the blade like he was born to do it.  
  
And though Ethan honestly, honestly does not think too much about the things they did, before, Giles still wakes up early and stares into the mirror, and tries not to see the ghost of the tattoo on his arm or the ghost of Randall hovering somewhere just beyond his perception. And he practices how to act like he's not acting at all, and resolutely ignores the metallic taste in his mouth.  
  
And he hears, in his head, the faint click of a safety being pulled. 


End file.
